Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales

by James Ellroy

  Donna knew her. They surfed the same social circuit. We came sans Tim. That served to simplify. She vibed out our vile visit. Her eyes racked up something’s wrong. Donna dipped by uninvited. I was unshaven, unkempt, and a cop.

  We sat down. The living room loomed large. Fucking Beverly Hills—high-ticket hebe haciendas.

  La Lowenstein looked at us. I reran the shakedown show at Casa de Suenos. Lewd Lorna leeches that love tool. Lurid Lorna flares her fly trap. She leaps lizardlike and licks.

  Donna said, “It’s about Donny DeFreeze.”

  Laydown Lorna lowered her eyes. “Yes?”

  I said, “He’s an extortionist, Mrs. Lowenstein. His partner made films of the two of you. He planned to threaten to expose you to your husband.”

  Lachrymose Lorna—her tear ducts dipped on and dripped.

  “I would have paid.”

  Donna said, “You won’t have to now.”

  I said, “He’s a major suspect in some other crimes. I’m sure we’ll get him for them before he has the chance to extort you.”

  Loser-in-love Lorna—lured into the lurch. Wet-eyed with tear-torn mascara.

  “The age difference. I should have known, but I was having too much fun.”

  Donna handed her a hankie. Donna shot me a shush now, you heathen look.

  “Did he ever discuss someone who had a so-called plan for me?”

  Lorna held her hankie. Lorna hid her eyes. Tears channeled down to her chin.

  “He said he had a powerful friend with a big thing for you, and that you were taking him to the Oscars. I’m on the awards committee, and he asked me lots of questions about the show.”

  My cell phone vibrated and popped in my pants. I took it out. A text message ditzed display diodes and mapped.

  “D.S. to R.J.: Go to Falafel Fan now.”

  Libidinous Lorna said, “My husband has fun with his boys. Why can’t I have fun with a sexy young man?”

  WE FREEWAY FLEW. We took the 10 and soared surface streets south. We came in code 3. I ran my red light and sounded my siren.

  We threaded up 34th Street. We veered on Vermont. We pounced on pandemonium. We saw this:

  A blitz blaze of black-and-whites. A cordoned-off corner. Coroner’s canoes. A flat-out felony-car flotilla. Falafel Fan—crossed by crime-scene ropes. Cops—a sizable sidewalk contingent. Witness types winding around them. Dig—the cops are culling them and showing them pictures.

  I stopped the car. I got out. I smelled soul souvlakis and Palestine pitas. I threaded the throng. I tore around the tables and caught the counter.

  There’s Camelhead Cal. Tim and I griddle-groomed him two days ago. We sizzleized and Samsonized him. We burned his hair down to a butch.

  He’s dead now. He’s flat on the floor. He’s alight with Allah or crackling crisp in Christianized hell. His face is shotgun shorn and shaved. It’s a blood bloom. It’s pellet-pitted double-aught deep.

  I turned around. I saw Dave. He said, “We’ve got four eyewit IDs. It’s the guys from the Identikit pix.”

  I GOT it. I got it again. I got it goooood. It’s a hellbound holy war. It’s sex-crazed secularists vs. jacked-up jihadites. It’s some dune coon D-day. It’s a ghetto Gettysburg in Jigtown L.A.

  I saw Donna. She sat on a black-and-white. She signed autographs for cops and cruel cats in Crips colors. I walked over. A fat fuck in a “Tupac Lives” sweatshirt swatted his legs and laffed.

  Donna signed his county jail release slip. She wrote, “Brave New World 3. Love, Donna D.”

  5.

  The wire room—a boss bunker beside Parker Center.

  Wall-to-wall widgets. Tall tap devices. Switchboards and colored cords plied and plugged in. Confiscated couches covered in cat hair. Four headsets—for Donna, Dave, Tim, and me.

  We listened. We caught calls lewd and listless. Daisy Delgado delivered that warrant. We juked Jomo-Donny. We full-on phone-tapped him.

  SIS fucked up the Falafel Fan surveillance. Camel Cal got shotgun shaved in spite of it. The media materialized and maimed us. Falafel Fan, Habib Rashad, Fire Face, Dawn’s Dugout—what’s this A-rab aggravation and Shiite shit? Dead dames dumped in the San Gabriels—collateral carnage or corrosive coincidence?

  Chief Tierney tallied our dervish dead and dithered disingenuous. Ha, ha—holy war—not in my city. Terrorist tie-ins—no way. Those baaaad body dumps—undeniably unrelated.

  Dave phoned the Feds. They jumped on our Jigtown Jihad theory. They said they’d cull camelheads in custody. Said camelites might cough up intelligence. They’d hold them for LAPD.

  We sat four across. We caught calls. Our headsets hopped heat. I held hands with Donna. Sandalwood soap and almond after-bath assailed me.

  Calls. Switchboard lights lay out numbers and cull up caller ID.

  Jomo-Donny to Lorna Lowenstein. Message-machine mush. “Darling, I miss you so much. I ache for our next rendezvous.”

  Jomo-Donny to Donna. Message-machine machinations. “Donna, hi. It’s Donny. I’m thinking about the Oscars. I’m honored that we’re going together, and I’m making progress on the Sexton script. Call me. ’Bye.”

  Jomo-Donny and Sandra Saperstein, horny Hollywood wife— dig this ditzy extract:

  “I can’t tell you how I miss you, Donny.”

  “I miss you, too, doll.”

  “I’m going to get a peel at the Georgette Klinger Salon. They say it takes years off a person.”

  “What’s forty-nine years between lovers, doll? You’ve got pizzazz, and that’s what counts. I see you as ageless.”

  Jomo-Donny and Claire Samovitz, another Shakedown Sheba—hold for this rapture riff:

  “It was good last night, doll. You were the best.”

  “Oh, Donny. It was like my prom date, back in . . . oh, well . . . some time ago.”

  “Time’s for the bourgeoisie, baby. Brother Cinque said that. We’ve got the moment, and that’s where it’s at.”

  “Oh, Donny. You give the best head.”

  Jomo-Donny to pay phone/some A-rab-voiced asshole/sick seditiousness:

  “The target, Assan. If we concentrate on the target now, all will be well.”

  “I understand, Jomo. We must assume that the police know we killed the infidel at the Falafel Fan. We must hide until the moment. The target is everything.”

  Jomo-Donny to pay phone/another A-rab asshole/sexed-out sin shit:

  “I cannot go to the clubs, Jomo. There is too much heat. I have become addicted to lap dances, my brother. I know that my end and my final reward are near, but I crave the bounty of the flesh until that moment I greet Allah and his virgins. I need white pussy and chilled cocktails to sustain me.”

  “You will meet Allah soon, my brother. You must curb your urges and think of the target. Eternal poontang will be yours in paradise.”

  Jomo-Donny to Lou Pellegrino/rancid riffs on me:

  “We should have whacked that Jenson fuck.”

  “You don’t whack cops, Donny. It just ain’t done.”

  “He’s a fuck. He humiliated me in front of Donna.”

  “He’s a weirdo. He’s considered a freak around LAPD, and I’ve heard he’s got two shooting boards coming up. He’s got these shootouts hanging over him, and he can’t move on you, because he’s got this sick thing for Donna Donahue, and he’ll fuck it up if he fucks you over.”

  Jomo-Donny made more calls. Jomo-Donny buzzed Bigtown Pizza. Jomo-Donny called Khalid’s Kustom Cars and Larry’s Lamborghini Service. Jomo-Donny called two more horny Hollywood Hannahs. They talked Oscar shit. They replayed recent ruts. Both babes boded borderline senile. They grooved and grokked Jomo-Donny on their greased slide to the grave.

  Shakedown shit. “Target” talk—totally terrorist. Lou Pellegrino—coerced and compromised—our punk puppet now.

  Jomo-Donny—mosque mastiff manqué. He’s one insidious Islamic. He’s indictable now. But—we need to shore more shit on the “target.”

  I held Donna’s hand. I heard he
r heartbeat. I hammered out a plan and unhooked our headsets. Tim and Dave dumped theirs.

  Tim said, “I know that look. You’ve got a brainstorm.”

  I said, “We send Donna in wired. She meets the fuck for dinner and pumps him on the ‘target.’ He’s a risk freak, so he might divulge.”

  Dave said, “I’m in.”

  Donna pored through her purse and pulled out a pearl-gripped Python. The big barrel glistened and gleamed.

  “I’m in. Pacific Dining Car, tonight. I’ve been jonesing for a good steak.”

  Tim filched a field phone. We hooked on our headsets. Donna dialed Dipshit Donny.

  Three rings, one pickup pop. Demon Donny’s “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Donna.”

  “Hi, yourself. I was just going to call you.”

  “How about dinner tonight? The Dining Car, on me.”

  “No, on me. I want to talk some serious Sexton.”

  “Eight, then? Some good wine, some good talk.”

  “Film talk, doll. I’ve got some ideas for an erotic thriller you’d be great in.”

  Thriller? Threat. Donna’s .357 Purse Python. Rope. Horror hebe Harvey Glatman. The body-dump babes. Snuff films. Blood-blistered rope. Scorched skin that tore off at a touch.

  Donna hung up. Mark it mission accomplished. Dave and Tim applauded. Hurricane-hurled hazel eyes hammered me.

  Donna said, “Brave New World 3. If it goes bad, I’ll kill him.”

  THE FEDS CULLED camel fuckers in custody. Said camelheads confirmed the contretemps. There’s a holy war inside a holy war—hear me, hafiz!

  Donna dipped off to a dog-food commercial. Dave, Tim, and I huddled at the Fed facility. We hogged a whole office. A fat Fed named Fields debriefed us. He said he’d interviewed eight inbred Islamics. They issued identical shit. He held one hajjite back to talk to us. In the meantime, dig this:

  We’ve got wild-ass A-rabs up the wazoo. We’ve detained these dune dusters on full felonies and Minnie Mouse misdemeanors. There’s an ugly underground undulating all over L.A. These louts are looking for laundered loot, courtesy of Al Qaeda. It’s fucked-up funding for sleeper cells—real and fake. Some camel cads want to blow up buildings and mow down monuments. Some jihadite jackoffs want to couch the cash and party dawn to dusk.

  The latter losers live for lurid liaisons with white wenches. They blitz Blonde Bombshell and Blue-Eyed Babes outcall. They live in lap-dance lairs. They pounce on porno bookstores and buy beaver boox. They rampage through rock clubs. They slip Round-reeled Ritas Rohypnol and rape them. They quiver on Quaaludes, they creep out on crack cocaine, they vibrate on Viagra. Their full-on fundamentalism has flared and flip-flopped. Islam— ick—we’re Americans now. Fuck the corny Koran. We’re swarthy swingers. We’re sold-out Secular Sids.

  We dug it. We chortled in our chairs. Fields ducked out and bopped back with a beaky Bedouin. The cat was cuffed. He wore a white jumpsuit. He looked wicked and wary and witheringly smart. He knew Ramadan from ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong.

  Fields said, “This is Gamal Abboud, aka Abe Goldberg. He was trying to pass as a yid to score Jewish chicks. He’s a panty sniffer. Hollywood Vice caught him slamming the ham in a back aisle at Victoria’s Secret.”

  Abboud said, “I’m an American. I support George W. Bush and John F. Kerry. I support a woman’s right to choose and school vouchers. I’m an apostate. Fuck that Islam shit.”

  Tim tittered. “You picked up some American vices.”

  “I’m an American. I respect diversity. You’ve got your bag, I’ve got mine. We’re free to be you and me. I love white women and dry martinis. Your scene is your scene.”

  Whoa—he’s one wild Wahhabi turned loose libertine! He’s culture-corrupted. He’s a vice vandal. He’s Americoonized!

  I said, “Americans are good snitches. They curry favor with authority and rat their friends off to save their own skin. You dig my drift, sahib?”

  He dug it. He salaamed and saluted. Critters crawled through his beard.

  “I’m an American. I understand my civic duty as a stool pigeon. We’re free to be all we can be. I’m free to suck up to authority in exchange for political asylum.”

  Dave dug out the Identikits. Fields chose a chair for Abboud. We served up a circle. Our knees nudged. Abboud picked his nose and nailed a nice nugget. A big beetle bipped through his beard.

  He squinted. He squared up the pix. He said, “I know them.”

  I said, “Names?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dave said, “Who are they?”

  Abboud said, “Terrorists. They stay mobile and sleep in their cars. There is supposed to be a big attack soon, but I don’t know the target. It’s a suicide mission. Those Shiite pigs have been living it up, because they know they will die soon. I’ve seen them at gentlemen’s clubs.”

  Tim tore in. “How do you know this?”

  Abboud licked his lips. A bug bopped off his beard and tangoed on his tongue. He bit him and ate him. Bug juice bipped.

  “The Internet. Lap-dance Lou’s Chatroom. All the expatriate Arab swingers log on. Lap-dance Lou is really Ephraim Ben-Gazi. He’s also known as ‘Date-Rape Dani Dayan.’ He deals Rohypnol and Viagra. The swingers post notes to each other and reveal things they should keep secret. They’re good Americans impaired by alcohol and drugs.”

  I said, “ ‘The target’ implies a big operation. Where’s the money coming from?”

  “Two sources. The manager at Falafel Fan was laundering cash from Al Qaeda, but he kept blowing it at the clubs, which is why the zealot faction killed him. His cousin Habib Rashad laundered cash and blew it, which is why he was killed. They became good horny Americans, and—”

  I cut it. “The second source. Give on that.”

  Abboud leered licentious. “It’s a white American with Arab sentiments. He’s extorting rich women and making ‘sin films’ for distribution to Muslim biggies in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve heard they are quite misogynistic.”

  Jomo-Donny. Dead outcall hos. Snuff films. Harvey Glatman glowers. Scorched skin that tore off at a—

  Dave dug in. “Where were the films shot?”

  Abboud said, “I heard it was a loft. The warehouse district, maybe North Alameda.”

  Tim stood up. His chair tilted and toppled.

  “I’ll call the squad and have them check building ownerships. There’s just a few loft blocks over there.”

  Dave nodded. Tim rolled from the room. Fields fidgeted, Fed-like—LAPD lifts his Sufi suspect for our collateral case. Donna dreams drilled me. I become her hellacious hero. I take on terrorists and trounce them. Rhino Rick reigns as the new Rudy G. Righteous Republicans raise my banner. I run for governor. I smugly smear Schwarzenegger as the sex-soiled and steroid-stung stinker he is. I marry Donna. We bloom in bliss and raise rambunctious rhinoettes. I’m Ronald Reagan redux. Fat cats find me and finance me. I prowl primary states and nab the nomination. I proudly pry up the Presidency.

  Dig Donna as First Lady! Dig our looooooooooooooooooooong lovemaking in the Lincoln Bedroom! Dig our ruuuuuuuuuuuude Rose Garden ruts!

  I fantasized. Abboud apostatized, motor-mouthed and meandered. It’s priapic prophecy. A-rabs assail L.A. It’s cocktail-lounge carnage. It’s the date-rape diaspora. Dani Dayan dumps Rohypnol and wacks out the water supply. Rape-os come up comatose and rack out too ratched to rape. Falafel Fans fan out—freaky franchises all. They mulch McDonald’s and burn down Burger King. Chief Tierney lays lap-dance lessons on LAPD. Lady cops cough up cooze to A-rabs citywide.

  Tim ran into the room. Tim rocked it out.

  “The building at 412 North Alameda—it’s registered to a Harvey Glatman.”

  WE LAID TRACKS. We ribbed rubber to the address. It’s a four-floor loft space just north of Japtown.

  We filed into the foyer. We found mailbox slots. “Glatman” glared out. The fuck’s on floor four.

  The lift crawled, creaked, and left my lunch lurching. A hallway hooked to the doo
r. I buzzed the bell. No answer. Tim laid lock picks into the latch. The jamb jumped, the door popped.

  We walked in. We hit a snug snuff-film set. We crept the Weegeeish walls and crawled this cruel creepspace.

  White wallpaper. Filthy fetish pix. Babes bound-and-gagged. Insidiously intercut with vicious victim shots.

  Judy Ann Dull, Shirley Ann Bridgeford, Ruth Rita Mercado— Harvey G.’s desecrated dolls. They’re hogtied. They’re horror-struck. They’re hoarse from screaming. It’s death divvied up from detective-mag decks. It’s nihilistic pop art.

  More pix—all rancidly recent—strict stretched-neck strangulation shots. Familiar faces—the body-dump vics—devastated dears three across. Rope-burned and ravaged. Burned from arson-hot arc lights right on this spot.

  Still more pix—’70s sensations—Donald DeFreeze and Dark Donny’s mad mom, Nancy Ling Perry. There’s his negrophile namesake—Mr. Mau-Mau himself—Jomo Kenyatta.

  We fanned out. We flew across floor space. We found:

  Mattresses—shorn of sheets and shoved in a corner. Movie cameras, big boom mikes, lenses, lens caps. Rolls of rope on a table. Gristle gracing the strands. Blood blisters with neck hair notched in. A heaping hamper close by. White sheets popping out. Rope imprints rendered red and dried-blood maroon.

  Donald DeFreeze was a leader in the Symbionese Liberation Army and was thought to have masterminded the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst. (Photo courtesy of the LAPD)

  Tim said, “That ‘erotic thriller’—he’ll bring Donna back here after dinner and make his move.”

  Dave said, “We’ll close-tail her and keep her safe, but she’s got to get a make on the target.”

  I said, “She’ll get him to talk. Then we’ll let her kill him.”

  6.

  Donna went in wired. We perched in the Pacific Dining Car parking lot.

  She went in at 8:02. Jomo-Donny joined her at 8:06. He left his lipstick Lambo with Luis the car-park cat. Donna ditched her Daimler-Benz streetside.

  We lay low. We waited in Dave’s Dodge Dart. We wore free-frequency headsets. Dave pulled Donna’s Purse Python. He figured she might wax wistful and whack the freaky fruit on GP. We gave her a scurvy script to work off. Donna, do this: